Bio
Sarah Shoker received her Ph.D. in political science from McMaster University. Her dissertation, which was nominated for the CAGS/UMI Distinguished Dissertation Award, examined the Bush and Obama-era decision to exclude boys and men from drone warfare’s collateral damage count. The nomination came from her novel contributions to the field; she was able to empirically demonstrate that data analysts used stereotypes about gender and religion to inform who was selected as a drone target. As a result, civilians were often mischaracterized as combatants. "Military-Age Males in U.S Counterinsurgency and Drone Warfare" is currently under contract with Palgrave MacMillan, with publication tentatively scheduled for 2020.
Sarah is the founder of Glassbox, a consultancy firm that trains teams in software development, legal services and government to identify how choices made along the AI technical pipeline can translate into social bias.
Her research interests focus on international security, emerging technologies and gender. Sarah is currently completing a project for Global Affairs Canada in which she is looking at the gendered impact of information and communications technology failures and how gender can be better integrated into Canada’s cybersecurity strategy.